


somewhere deeper

by wouldratherbe



Category: Glee
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/F, First Kiss, Flowers, Hospitals, Last Kiss, Wakes & Funerals
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-23
Updated: 2020-12-23
Packaged: 2021-03-11 05:34:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,277
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28269945
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wouldratherbe/pseuds/wouldratherbe
Summary: Quinn smiles at Rachel, sizing her up. “It must be really bad, if you’re here.”or: the car accident doesn’t go as well as everyone wishes.
Relationships: Rachel Berry/Quinn Fabray
Comments: 29
Kudos: 79





	somewhere deeper

**Author's Note:**

> A couple months ago, I wrote a fic where Rachel is the one to die, but upon rereading it, I realized that I never actually fulfilled the prompt. Instead of rewriting it, I just decided to write a new one. Have fun :)
> 
> title from ‘oblivion’ by bastille.

Rachel’s dads make her go.

“She’s not going to get any better, baby girl,” Hiram murmured, after Rachel tried to put off going to the hospital for yet another evening.

Everyone in glee was pissed at her. Santana had even been _avoiding_ her, she was so mad. Finn had yelled at her on day two, and she’d gotten all the way to the front doors of the hospital before she shook her head and refused to step any further. Kurt got her all the way up to the PICU floor, but somewhere in between the room that held the little boy recovering from heart surgery, and Quinn’s room, Rachel’s legs gave out.

Mr. Schuester had delivered a note from Quinn, and although Rachel knew she was trying to be funny, or something, it just made her feel worse. Especially the part where her writing got wobbly, and she said, _“I’m getting sleepy, Rachel, but I’m asking you to please come see me.”_

According to Mercedes, she’d developed epilepsy after the accident, and something on her phone gave her a seizure a few days before, so no one was really too keen on giving it back to her anytime soon.

Rachel’s dad wasn’t a pediatric surgeon, but he had been a part of Quinn’s case as a general one. While he wouldn’t say anything specific, he had been urging her to go, and now he was making her.

“We’re getting into goodbyes, now,” he said, rubbing her back as she laid on the couch. “She wants to see you. She asks about you everyday.”

Rachel couldn’t even keep the contempt out of her voice as she spoke. “Why? I killed her.”

She heard her dads sigh above her, and imagined the looks they were giving each other. Not pleasant ones. They probably hated her almost as much as she hated herself.

Leroy was the one to pull her off the couch, forcing her to stand as he tossed her coat at her. “Rachel, she wants to see you. This is what she wants. So, we’re going. Get your shoes on, and let’s go.”

And now they’re pushing her into Quinn’s hospital room, all practiced cheers and strained smiles that can’t quite meet their eyes.

Rachel holds a bouquet of flowers rather lamely, watching as her dad pats an exhausted Russell Fabray on the back, and her daddy hugs Judy. Both are surprisingly well received, and the brunette absently wonders how many things have changed since… since Rachel killed Quinn.

Quinn’s not dead, of course, and that’s made apparent when the girl clears her throat, forcing everyone to look at her. She smiles at Rachel, tilting her head slightly as she sizes her up. “It must be _really_ bad, if you’re here.”

Rachel can’t really equate this Quinn with what she’s so used to seeing, but she tries. She tries really hard.

For one, they both have… well, blonde hair. That’s something. Her eyes are still that distracting hazel that seems to be unique to Quinn. But one of them has a red patch towards the center, surrounded by a ton of bruising, and it’s scary. Just a little. Her arm is in a cast, and she’s wearing her own shorts, so Rachel can see all of the bandages around her legs. There’s a long line of stitches on the outside of her right thigh, and Rachel looks up, swallowing hard.

Quinn’s smile is gone, replaced by a furrowed brow and bitten lip.

Hiram claps his hands, announcing that it was a “good day” in the cafeteria, and he’d be getting everyone’s dinner. He leads the adults out after making sure that Rachel knows where the emergency button is, and asking if Quinn’s sure she’s okay, for the time being.

She gives him a toothy grin, and shrugs. “I’m pretty sure this is as good as it gets.”

“That’s my girl.”

And then they’re alone. And Quinn’s smile drops again as Rachel scans the rest of her body. She’s trying to figure out which IV goes where when Quinn snaps her fingers.

“Take a picture, Berry. It’ll last longer.” She laughs to herself a little. “Literally.”

“Don’t talk like that,” Rachel chastises her.

Quinn scoffs at that, leaning back onto her bed and kicking the blankets further away. “She speaks.”

They stare at each other for a few more seconds, before Rachel thrusts the bouquet in Quinn’s face. “These are for you.”

The blonde leans back, closing her eyes. Rachel notices a flash of pain seize through her, and mentally kicks herself, pulling the bouquet back to her chest.

“I’m sorry.”

Quinn waves her off, reaching up to gingerly push a lock of hair behind her ear. “It’s not you, it’s-”

“No, I’m…”

Rachel can tell that Quinn’s waiting for a long, drawn out apology, but she doesn’t have one. She can barely get out the actual words before she’s sobbing, and this is so embarrassing. Except it’s not, because Quinn’s _dying,_ and it’s all her fault, and-

Quinn holds a hand out, pulling Rachel into the seat next to her bed to look into her eyes head on. “Stop, Rachel… This isn’t your fault! I promise you. It’s not your fault.”

“It is!” Rachel blubbers. “If you weren’t on your way to my wedding, then you wouldn’t have gotten hit… Or if I hadn’t insisted on forcing you, or- Or, if I just hadn’t gotten married, then none of this-”

“But I was, and you did, and… you wanted to. And either way, none of that was the cause of this. The _cause_ of this was me texting on my phone, and a damned potato farmer driving ninety miles an hour. Now, did you make me pull out my phone while I was driving?”

Rachel thinks back to her texts. Urgent, impatient. “Yes! If-”

“No. Rachel. Did you force me to look at my phone while I was driving?” Quinn peers into her eyes, making sure this is all getting through, and shakes her head. “You didn’t. And you didn’t make that guy hit me. Okay? Please don’t blame yourself for this. Promise me you won’t.”

It’s an empty promise, and they both know it, but Rachel still nods, and squeezes Quinn’s hand, before looking at the other arm, hidden by her cast.

It’s red, and covered in signatures. There are scribbly ones, and Rachel guesses that those are from the other kids on the floor. Finn told her that he and Quinn had spent time playing board games with some of them. She can spot all of the glee kids’ names, and recognizes some of the Cheerios’.

There’s a tiny handprint, and Rachel’s just about to ask who it’s from, when she sees the name next to it.

_Shelby_

Rachel’s oblivious at the best of times, but she knows not to open that can of worms right now. Maybe not ever.

Quinn must sense her trepidation, because she gestures to the bouquet, holding her hand out for it. “Explain it to me.”

“What?”

Quinn pats the side of her bed in an effort to get the girl to sit with her. “Explain the flowers to me. What do they mean?”

Rachel shifts on her feet, but ultimately gives in. It’s Quinn Fabray, what choice does she have? She takes her time making sure that Quinn is okay, before holding her hands in her lap and shrugging. “What makes you think I’d know?”

Quinn laughs at this, shaking her head. “I just know you know.”

Rachel focuses on her smile, and tries to remember the last time she saw Quinn this happy. Maybe never, to be honest. And isn’t that sad? That it took the girl being on her damned deathbed for her to smile like this. It took Rachel hauling her ass up to the hospital, and flowers that she’s never going to look at the same way again.

How did they get here?

“So, what are they?” Quinn inquires, spinning the bouquet around and gently reaching out to touch the petals.

Rachel points to the purple flowers, and Quinn picks one of them, and hands it to her friend.

“These are hyacinths. The purple ones represent… sorrow. Or regret, sometimes.”

Quinn nods, silent as she inspects the tiny flowers. Rachel can’t help but stare at her face. She desperately wants to know what’s going on inside of the blonde’s head. Soon enough, she points to the yellow ones. “And these?”

“These are primroses.”

Quinn’s face lights up, and Rachel’s does, too. “Like in the Hunger Games.”

Rachel merely hums. “They mean I can’t live without you.”

“Yeah, right,” Quinn snorts, about as ungracefully as Rachel can imagine. She cuts her eyes at the brunette.

“They do! You can look it up.”

Quinn rolls her eyes, and Rachel grimaces at the red patch. It’s a lot bigger than she thought it was. “No, I mean… You can live without me, Rachel.”

She won’t meet Rachel’s eyes as she speaks, and the girl thinks that Quinn actually _means_ that. “What are you talking about? Quinn, if… it’s going to… I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Good. Because you can live without me. You’re going to become a great actress, and everyone’s going to know your name, and when they ask you who gave you all the inspiration for your fashion, you will proudly say, _Quinn Fabray.”_ The blonde stops abruptly, noting the tears in her friend’s eyes.

Rachel’s somehow managed to curl away from Quinn, but they’re still holding hands, and it only takes one tug on her hand to get her to look the other way.

“Listen. You’re _going_ to live without me, Rachel.”

“I won’t want to,” Rachel mutters, and it shocks Quinn into silence.

Rachel isn’t surprised by them at all. She’s been dealing with these thoughts since she got the initial call. If Quinn dies… God, she won’t know how to live with herself. She won’t want to.

“Don’t - _Rachel._ You can’t… Your dads need you. Finn needs you!”

“Finn and I broke up,” Rachel scoffs as Quinn wipes under her eyes. It doesn’t help. The tears are still coming. Quinn may as well stop trying to get them to cease. It’s not going to work.

The blonde tugs Rachel closer, hands cupping her cheeks as she gives her a wistful smile. “Hey. Listen to me.”

Rachel is helpless, staring in those giant eyes. Why are her eyes so _big?_ How is that fair?

“Everything is going to be okay.”

This sets off an avalanche, and Rachel thinks she might be having a panic attack, with how hard she’s crying, doubled with the fact that she can’t get a full breath of air.

Quinn pulls Rachel’s head against her chest, breathing deeply. Her chest stutters every few seconds, and Rachel wonders if it’s because she’s in pain, or because she’s crying, too. She doesn’t know which one she would hate more.

Quinn waits until the beeping of the monitors has calmed them both into a state of soft sniffles before she speaks again. “What about these?”

Rachel has to shift to see what she’s talking about, but it ends up being the last flowers in the bouquet. She props herself up on her elbow, making sure to not disrupt any of Quinn’s wires, and tilts her head. “Oh. Gardenias.”

That seems to be enough of an answer for Quinn, who just places the bouquet back on her nightstand, before turning to face Rachel. “Gardenias.”

Rachel nods, and Quinn nods back, a tiny smile on her face. “Secret love.”

“You know that one,” Rachel asks, but it’s not really a question.

“Of course.” Once again, the cheerleader doesn’t offer any other explanation, and Rachel’s left grasping at straws.

That’s probably why she isn’t expecting the kiss.

It’s rough, hurried. Rachel’s hands reach up to steady the blonde, and she can feel bandages along her back. Quinn shifts away from her touch, and their lips part for a second as a pained gasp escapes her. Rachel tries to mutter an apology, but Quinn’s back to kissing her. She smells like a hospital, and that realization makes Rachel want to run and hide in the deepest corner she can find, but she stays, silently wondering what the hell they’re doing.

A part of her is asking why it took so long, and she knows she’s never going to be able to answer that.

Quinn breaks it off less than a minute after it starts, with tears in her eyes and a scraped up hand running through her hair. “God. I’m sorry. I’m sorry! I shouldn’t have done that.”

“No, no, no, Quinn. Don’t apologize.”

Quinn wants to say more, Rachel can tell, but she doesn’t. For once, she looks lost, and busies herself with picking at the cotton under her cast. The brunette grabs her hand, silently asking to see her eyes, and her friend grants her wish, if only for a second. The girls gaze at each other, and Rachel has half a mind to lean in again, but Quinn just scoots down on the bed so she’s leaning against Rachel’s chest.

“I’m not doing it again,” she whispers. Rachel nods, trying to miss the wires as she rubs Quinn’s back. She didn’t really expect her to. “I’m not that cruel.”

“Stop acting like you’re… _dying,”_ Rachel murmurs. “Everyone keeps acting like this is just… the end. As if you’re not sitting here joking around. We should be planning your coming home party.”

“If by that you mean my ‘coming-home-to-Jesus’ party, then sure.”

Rachel huffs, sending locks of blonde hair airborne. “Quinn-”

“No,” the girl orders. “Stop. Please.”

It goes silent, and the brunette rests her cheek on Quinn’s head, breathing heavily. “Then will you at least tell me what’s wrong?”

“My organs are shutting down.” Quinn actually _laughs,_ and Rachel has never been angrier with her. “And I’m too fragile to try to mess with in the meantime. I don’t know. I stopped paying attention when they started talking about hospice.”

She knows that’s a lie. Quinn knows everything. She’s just refusing to tell her.

“Why aren’t you in hospice, then?” Rachel asks. Her thumb is grazing back and forth above Quinn’s hip, where her shirt’s ridden up. She glances at the spot, and feels her stomach turn at the green and yellow bruising.

“They’re not giving up on me just yet, Berry. It was just something they mentioned in passing. Geez. Have some hope.”

The smaller of the girls rolls her eyes, and tries to smile, but her mouth doesn’t quite make the connection. “I still don’t get it. You seem… great.”

Quinn nods under her chin, and tightens her grasp on Rachel’s waist. “They call it the surge. It basically means I have a ton of last minute energy right now, because I’m about to die. My body knows it isn’t going to get better.”

Rachel flinches, her mouth falling open as Quinn explains it. How it’s good that Rachel came now, because she could barely keep her eyes open before. How she was getting better, and then she just got _so much worse._ How the surge started yesterday. How she knows it’s about to come to an end.

“But it’s okay. I did everything I needed to do, you know? I did more than most people. Had a baby. Won numerous national and regional cheer and show choir championships, although I would like it maintained that I did that last part against my will.”

She gives Rachel a melancholic smile, wiping her tears. “Rachel… I promise you, this is all okay. Everything is going to be okay.”

“No, it sucks.”

“It definitely sucks. But it can still be okay. You can all be okay.”

###### 

Rachel wishes she could say that the following days, weeks, months, are okay.

They’re not. They’re hell, and if Quinn were here, Rachel would tell her so.

But she’s not.

Rachel can’t forget how cool Quinn’s forehead felt when she’d kissed her goodnight. Quinn was already asleep, and Hiram had taken over watching her for the night, but Rachel wasn’t permitted to stay.

It’s a good thing, too, because she doesn’t know what she would’ve done the next morning, when Quinn’s heart stopped.

Hiram came home later that night, and Rachel had listened from her bedroom door as he cried to her daddy about how it took so long to get her heart beating again. How she still wasn’t conscious. How she probably wouldn’t survive the night.

“It’s funny, because when I used to hear about big bad Quinn Fabray, I always assumed…” His voice dropped out, and Rachel strained to hear. “I never would’ve thought I’d be trying to resuscitate her tiny little body… Leroy, she’s so _little.”_

Rachel had spent the whole night awake, laying on her bed and thinking about everywhere she went wrong in life. She should’ve been expecting it, but it was still a million punches to the gut when her dads both knocked on her door, looking sadder than she’d ever seen them look.

The funeral was also _not_ okay.

Half the school showed up. The sermon was long and insanely uncomfortable, even though Judy and Russell seemed to get something out of it.

Rachel knows she’s going to be trying to scrub the image of Quinn in that white dress out of her mind forever. She also knows she’s never going to be able to.

The receiving line was long, and the glee kids were all clumped together in the middle of it, even though they’d all sat somewhat towards the front. There was a video playing on the tvs in the corner, and it was just Quinn.

All Quinn.

Quinn as a toddler, and good lord, was she cute. Quinn with pigtails and braces ( _“She would’ve hated that,”_ Santana comments, and they all nod, but they all smile). Quinn in tutus, and holding trophies. Quinn as the freshman cheer captain, and her subsequent leap to varsity captain the next year. Quinn holding her baby niece (who, by some sick twist of fate, looks exactly like her aunt). Quinn in glee club, and at Finn’s house, and Mercedes’ house, burgeoning baby bumps in both. Quinn holding a newborn Beth, obviously annoyed at the camera in her face. Finn chuckles from somewhere off to the side. There’s a few of Quinn and Santana, and then there’s a few of Quinn and Rachel.

Rachel really didn’t know what to make of it all. She completely forgot some of those pictures existed. One of them with Tina, looking absolutely exhausted as they try to write original songs in New York. One of just them, baking cookies before sectionals a few months ago. They’d been arguing a lot over Shelby that day, and Rachel’s daddy had snapped it in the middle of their - actually, very antagonistic - flour fight.

The last picture was from their dress fitting for regionals. They hadn’t used those dresses, but Rachel had made them all promise to use them for Nationals, _if_ they made it to Nationals. Someone, Santana maybe, was behind her, fixing the halter strap, and Quinn was laughing at something, her nose scrunching up the way it did when she was truly pleased with something.

There’s a laugh somewhere in the church, and Rachel turns her head along with everyone else to see Quinn’s niece, playing with Beth.

Beth’s the one that laughed, loud and free, her nose scrunching up in the way that showed she was truly pleased with whatever was in front of her.

And, God, nothing about this was okay.

But it would be.

**Author's Note:**

> we all good?? we all good?? everyone made it???
> 
> please leave kudos and comments if you enjoyed!! thanks for reading xx


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